How do I simplify an animation?
Right now I am in the process of making a Shooter, and with this I have completed an AI that I thought was working but I forgot about a couple of things to QA. I then discovered when making the player for this shooter that animations were not playing properly when I had the player crouch (like aiming, idling, etc, walking and running were still fine) I discovered that the animations were not moving with the body, rather being set to the exact position when animated. I realised that this would mean I would have to animate everything in every position possible, and if I wanted to have aiming up/down then I had to get rid of the bob motion and use a simple logic controlled timeline to smoothly transition between looking up - mid - down.
This is a photo of the idle animation set-up (incomplete) for holding a rifle (not aiming just holding it) https://cdn.indreams.me/c33777a7fd8b983dcc0d99dff6843dca
The first 3 are the Into - Loop - Out of idling standing, then the middle one is a inbetween for switching to crouching. The next 3 are for crouching, the next 4 are for switching to leaning left from standing, then mid is inbetween for left to right and vice versa, then the next four are switching from standing to leaning right and the 3 for the leaning right.
I'm thinking to myself "There must be a better, less complicated way!) but from what I can tell there is no way to blend between two timelines and or to have keyframes affected by external forces. I've looked into using rotators/followers for the position of the arms but those are very inconsistent and would not make for a good animation.I've also noticed that when modifying the position of a limb before play the puppet tries to keep it there but it follows the main bone like it should, so I tried to keyframe a position and have it set to keep changes but for puppets it doesn't set this "Pre-Play" position for puppets so the puppet would move it's limb back in place.
Any Molecules have anything to share for tips on animating? Or has anyone else found a simpler method?
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This is super impressive (and very neat) but as you are finding, the more polish & functionality your need to add, the complexity increases exponentially.
For a MUCH simpler version (sorry if it is too simple but it is what I would do) I would remove all transition animations and just have the states. I would also try to make he states a single pose on 1 keyframe, not a timeline, and use a selector to switch between states do that you don’t have to manually manage states.
With such a simple system you will want to use the inherent puppet animation to add bob/breathing to your anim and prevent it from looking too static.
Use the blend in/out of the key frames to make the animations blend between states. And add some wobble to mask the transition too.
Hope this helps. Sorry if it is too simple. Looking forward to seeing what you make :) Peter -
Check "stealth engine", I did what was mentioned below. You can do in large scale if you want.
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I didn't know the puppet had a bob/breathing thing I'll have to find that.
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What is meant by "add some wobble"?
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